Gregory Tibbetts:  

LIFE: After H.S. graduation, I studied drafting at Green River CC in a Boeing sponsored program and joined Boeing in the fall of 1965 after completing the class. I married my first wife in May of 1966. I joined the Army in July of 1966 and trained as a helicopter crew chief. I spent 1967 and 1968 in Vietnam on medivac helicopters; returned to the states in late 1968 and finished my remaining months of service as a Criminal Investigator at Fort Benning, Georgia. Though I had a job offer as an investigator with the District Attorney's office in Columbus, Georgia, I was homesick after three years away and turned them down. I returned home to Tacoma in late 1969 to double-digit unemployment. Fortunately, I was able to rejoin Boeing, but was laid off after only a few months. I worked various jobs, most lasting only a few months, but I was also going to college focusing primarily on math and logic. I eventually graduated from Evergreen State College in 1973. I was unable to find work in math/science, so I joined Atlas Foundry and Machine Company in Tacoma as an Assistant Manager in Human Resources, eventually working my way up to handling hiring, labor relations, employee Safety & Health and Plant Environmental Control. When I left, I was Director of Risk Management. Computers and electronics were just a hobby, though an avid one, until 1980, when I learned that a small start-up company called Microsoft was located close by in Bellevue. I'd been using Microsoft software and reading about the company for a couple of years. in 1980, most people thought microcomputers were just toys and a fad at that. I had put on a demonstration and tried to interest my colleagues at Atlas to try them for software like spreadsheets and word processors, but I couldn't get any takers. Accounting wanted to keep their calculators and everyone else their Dictaphones .It didn't help that the corporate computer department, keepers of the mainframe, sure didn't want people having their own computers on their desks! I decided to take a risk and left my good paying executive job at Atlas that summer to try and get a job with Microsoft. It took some doing, but later that summer, I became Microsoft employee number 33 when I was hired to create the Product Support group for the newly formed Microsoft Retail Products company. During my first two years with Microsoft, I worked with a lot of companies that used our products and even had a monthly column in a magazine devoted to the Apple II, for which we made a hardware circuit board. Most of my columns were devoted to creating software to adapt different hardware products to the CP/M Operating System. I'd become somewhat well-known in the industry during this period and always had job offers in software development. In the summer of 1982, following a divorce, I left Microsoft and moved first to Santa Barbara and then to the San Fernando Valley in California to manage software development for a couple of computer start-up companies; Lobo Systems and Rana Systems, respectively. Not the best decision I ever made. I married a California girl in 1984 but rapidly tired of the start-up grind, and rejoined Microsoft in 1986 as a developer in the Operating Systems group. My wife joined the Computer Languages group as an Admin. Though the marriage didn't last beyond 1987, I stayed with Microsoft this time, first in OS development, then in the International Products Group creating foreign language (localized) versions of Microsoft products; eventually becoming Senior Director of IPG with over 1000 employees in two countries. In 1993 I downsized to manage a development group creating in-house software tools until I retired in 1994. After Microsoft, I did a lot of independent study and research in fields of interest; mostly electronics, physics and math. I helped friends with computer problems and occasionally consulted for former industry colleagues, but I stayed independent, letting my curiosity dictate what I spent time on. By age 64, though, I pretty much tired of computers and electronics, so except for the household PCs, I don't dabble in computers anymore. Now I mostly spend time reading, watching movies and toying with my cars. My wife, Julan, and I also do a bit of charity work, mostly with animal groups and mostly in North San Diego County. I met Julan at Microsoft in '87, and though we became a couple in '88, which we kept a secret since she worked for me, we didn't marry until 1999. We didn't want to rush things. ;-) We have no children, and never planned any, though I have two boys and a girl from my first marriage plus four grandchildren and one great grandchild, all of whom live in and around Federal Way, Washington. Julan retired from Microsoft in 1995. We moved from Renton, Washington, where we lived during our last several years with the company, to Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego County, California in 1997 after my mother died. The purpose was mostly to provide a warmer climate for my father, who suffered from se...Expand for more